And I thought, ‘What if we found one of those? What if we found big giant robots from outer space, from another civilization?’” The answers to these questions make for enthralling reading, made even more compelling by the unique format in which they’re told. One night we were watching Goldorak and he was way into it. ‘What does it do? Can it fly? Does it have missiles? Lasers? Pilots?’ So for a while I had this idea simmering as a backstory for a toy.

“I built him a toy robot and he started asking a ton of questions. “It started with my son,” Neuvel says, explaining the origin of his series. A major international incident is narrowly averted when Themis’s existence is accidentally revealed to the world at large. Once the robot is assembled and named Themis, the challenge becomes keeping it secret. Sleeping Giants gives a page-turning account of the top-secret search for the dismembered parts. The world depicted in The Themis Files is our own present day, except for the recent discovery of a massive robot abandoned on Earth by an ancient alien civilization that buried it in separate pieces all over the globe. They’re pretty much the least practical thing you can come up with.” “The only made-up thing is the giant robot,” he says with a laugh. For Waking Gods he went even further afield, reading British Parliamentary debates and investigating the genetic code, which plays a major part in the book’s crucial plot twist. “I put more research into Sleeping Giants than my PhD, probably by a power of ten.”ĭel Rey $37.00 cloth 336pp 9781101886724Neuvel, who trained as a linguist at the University of Chicago, had to learn about minerals, American military hierarchy, and the international locales where the book takes place, among other subjects, to give the story its authentic feel. “Everything in there is pretty rock solid,” he tells me. His enthusiasm in talking about his fictional world, and those of other authors, was infectious, especially when discussing the extensive research he conducted before writing each book. Sitting across from me for over an hour, Neuvel was an engaging subject.

Waking Gods, the second book in the series, was published by New York sci-fi powerhouse Del Rey this spring.

Bursting with political intrigue, high-stakes action, and fully fleshed-out characters, it was the first volume in his smart and highly addictive series of science fiction thrillers, The Themis Files.

This fantastical statement serves as the perfect capstone to our discussion about the unexpected turns his life has taken since he wrote his debut novel Sleeping Giants (2016). “I‘m building the inside of a spaceship in our laundry room,” Sylvain Neuvel tells me as our conversation in a Pointe-Saint-Charles café is winding down.

Waking gods review